1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conductive paste for external electrodes that may improve adhesive strength between external electrodes and a ceramic body and solve an issue of defective plating due to glass detachment, and a multilayer ceramic electronic component using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, according to the trend for the miniturization of electronic products, a multilayer ceramic electronic component is required to be miniaturized and to have ever higher amounts of capacitance implemented therein.
To meet requirements for miniaturization and to achieve increased capacitance, external electrodes of the multilayer ceramic electronic component has been thinned.
An external electrode paste may ensure chip sealability and electrical connectivity with a chip using a conductive material such as copper (Cu) as a main material, and improve the adhesive strength between the external electrodes and the chip while filling an empty space with glass as an auxiliary material at the time of sintering contraction of the above-described material.
An oxide-based glass powder is typically used as the glass component in the external electrodes. Here, the external electrodes may be formed by applying the external electrode paste to ends of the chip and then sintering the applied external electrode paste. Thereafter, plated layers may be formed on the external electrodes through the sequential electroplating of nickel (Ni) and tin (Sn).
However, when the oxide-based glass powder is added to the external electrode paste, the following problems may arise.
First, internal electrodes may be covered with the glass in a sintering process, thereby degrading connectivity between the internal electrodes and the external electrodes.
Second, the glass may be eluted to the outside of the external electrodes in the sintering process, and therefore, defective plating may occur in a plating process after the sintering process.
In particular, by thinning the external electrodes, a desired level of density may be difficult to be implemented therein, and the possibiltiy of the occurrence of defects caused by deficient or excessive amounts of glass may be increased due to a high temperature behavior of glass.